More Van Roy Coffee Building Photo Fun

View of the building with Detroit Avenue in the foreground

Here are a few more vintage photos of the Van Roy Coffee Building in Cleveland that I didn't use on my post last week. Two of the photos might be of interest to the street car aficionados that read my blog.

Like I said, I work just a few minutes away from this building, and stopped there a few times to buy coffee when the company was still headquartered there in the 1990s.

I often wondered why Detroit Avenue was so wide just east of the building (see modern aerial below).

That is, until I saw this photo (below).

The road was wide so as to accommodate the subway as it made its approach to the Detroit-Superior Bridge at W. 25th Street.

Here's another vintage photo – showing history being paved over – taken in 1955, courtesy of the Cleveland Memory Project website. You can see the Van Roy Coffee building in the distance.

Courtesy Cleveland Memory Project

The newspaper clipping that goes with this photo reads, "Old subway opening on Detroit Ave. at W. 29 St. was getting its final covering of asphalt today and should be ready for traffic this evening. Crews were also working at the old W. 25th St. subway entrance today and Friday will put the finishing touches on the covered up opening at the other end of the Detroit-Superior Bridge at Superior Ave. and W. Ninth St." 

Here's my photo of roughly the same area today, taken through my windshield last week.

To learn more about the Detroit-Superior Bridge Subway, visit this page on Drew Penfield's Lake Shore Rail Maps website.